How to Select and Feed Hens for Egg Production
For maximum egg production from your backyard flock, choose the same breeds of hens that large commercial producers use. Then you feed your hens correctly and maintain them with proper upkeep.
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Things You'll Need
- Chick starter ration
- Chick feeder
- Water and water pan
- Chicken grower ration
- Pan of grit
- Pre-layer feed ration
- Oyster shell
- Laying hen ration
Instructions
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Select a cross of two different White Leghorn lines or Rhode Island Reds crossed with Barred Plymouth Rock or New Hampshire Reds. Cross breeding gives the hens more vigor to produce more eggs and to be more disease resistant. If you want white egg shells, choose the White Leghorn crosses.
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Feed proteins, minerals, vitamins, carbohydrates and fats to chickens as a balanced diet. Their dietary needs change as the hens get older.
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Start with chick starter and feed it until the chicks reach the age of six weeks. Buy a bag of starter at your feed store and keep some in the brooder with the chicks to eat freely at all times. Place it in a chick feeder to keep the chicks from soiling the feed.
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Give chicken grower to the hens from six weeks of age on up until they are 17 weeks old. Feed grower free choice at a rate of three to four ounces of feed per hen each day. Start giving them some grit along with their feed at six weeks of age to help them digest their food.
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Begin offering a calcium supplement to the hens at the age of 17 weeks to help form the medullar bone, which produces the egg shells. Set out a pan of oyster shell along with a pre-layer feed ration.
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Switch to a laying hen ration when the hens are 19 weeks of age, along with the oyster shell, grit and a steady supply of clean, fresh water. Mature hens should eat four to five ounces of layer ration a day each, along with vegetable matter and insects.
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Offer food free choice to mature egg laying hens or limit feedings to twice a day to lessen the possibility of the feed attracting unwanted guests, such as predators, and getting dirty or spoiled.
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Tips & Warnings
Supplement your hens' diet with healthy kitchen scraps, such as vegetables, fruits and grain products, but don't include meats, spoiled foods, onions, potatoes or sugary products.
Feed hens a little grain mixture if you want, but don't allow them to get overweight. They will quit laying eggs.
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Comments
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I have 14 hens golden and they are going to lay egges but the size of eggs is smaller than white leghorn eggs. kinly suggest me for above mentioned purpose pl.
